XBMC Community Forum - View Single Post - [XBOX] HOW-TO encode videos in H.264 to be able to achieve playback on the Xbox

JPSiemer · 2008-06-09, 08:54

Ok, so after a little research on skipping frames, I found a fix!

It involves modifying the "mplayer.conf" file (located in: system\players\mplayer\)

Adding the line: "lavdopts=skiploopfilter=all" removes all deblocking from any file encoded with deblocking turned on (deblock=1:X:X -- X represents any value). This will produce visual artifacts upon playback, but solves the problem of not dropping frames in complex scenes!!! In most cases, this will make the video visually worse. However, files that were encoded with the "--nf" setting (or deblock=0:0:0) are unaffected and play back normal with zero quality drop.

An even better setting is adding the line: "lavdopts=skiploopfilter=bidir" -- With files encoded with Deblocking, this produces a lot less artifacting and better quality, but you can still run into a little skipping here and there. What this is doing is skipping the Deblocking filter on the B-Frames only.

And finally, one other setting is: "lavdopts=skiploopfilter=nonref". I couldn't find much info about it other than it helping with playback. I didn't test it because I read that "bidir" is the best, but I'm guessing that this setting removes deblocking on the Reference Frames (or non referenced frames?) I don't know... but give it a test!

All I did was open the mplayer.conf file into Notepad, added the line at the very bottom (under lavdopts=lowres=1,1400), saved, and uploaded to my box (replacing the old file).

Again, this seems to be only affecting Deblocked videos, but in one instance I dropped less frames on a video that wasn't Deblocked! So if you are willing to tradeoff quality for smooth playback, play with these settings! And please report back your results... maybe we can even get these to become changeable through the GUI!!!

2008-06-09, 08:54	#51
JPSiemer Senior Member Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 126	Ok, so after a little research on skipping frames, I found a fix! It involves modifying the "mplayer.conf" file (located in: system\players\mplayer\) Adding the line: "lavdopts=skiploopfilter=all" removes all deblocking from any file encoded with deblocking turned on (deblock=1:X:X -- X represents any value). This will produce visual artifacts upon playback, but solves the problem of not dropping frames in complex scenes!!! In most cases, this will make the video visually worse. However, files that were encoded with the "--nf" setting (or deblock=0:0:0) are unaffected and play back normal with zero quality drop. An even better setting is adding the line: "lavdopts=skiploopfilter=bidir" -- With files encoded with Deblocking, this produces a lot less artifacting and better quality, but you can still run into a little skipping here and there. What this is doing is skipping the Deblocking filter on the B-Frames only. And finally, one other setting is: "lavdopts=skiploopfilter=nonref". I couldn't find much info about it other than it helping with playback. I didn't test it because I read that "bidir" is the best, but I'm guessing that this setting removes deblocking on the Reference Frames (or non referenced frames?) I don't know... but give it a test! All I did was open the mplayer.conf file into Notepad, added the line at the very bottom (under lavdopts=lowres=1,1400), saved, and uploaded to my box (replacing the old file). Again, this seems to be only affecting Deblocked videos, but in one instance I dropped less frames on a video that wasn't Deblocked! So if you are willing to tradeoff quality for smooth playback, play with these settings! And please report back your results... maybe we can even get these to become changeable through the GUI!!!